If We Can’t Touch,
How Do We Teach?
This global pandemic is requiring everyone to think and to act differently.
Sadly, some of the things we have to do to keep safe are the very things
that will continue to make it even tougher for us to earn a living.
(Especially if you’ve never had quite enough students to begin with!)
What Can You Do Now To Assure Your
?? Livelihood Going Forward ??
“How To Really
!Teach A.T. Online!”
An Introduction to:
PrimalAlexander
The First Alexander Technique Teacher Training Path
Developed Specifically For Online Teaching
Hi…I’m Mio Morales. I’m an Alexander teacher/trainer who trained with Dr. Frank Pierce Jones from 1972-1975 and Marjorie Barstow from 1972-1993.
Since 2005, I’ve been teaching & training Alexander teachers using a unique approach to the Alexander Technique developed to address the specific limitations & possibilities inherent in online teaching.
PrimalAlexander™ (P.A.) is a step-by-step teaching system informed by Alexander’s ‘Evolution of a Technique’, the work of Dr. Frank Pierce Jones, Marjorie Barstow’s work & my more than 3,000 hours of research into online teaching & training.
It’s a comprehensive, hands-free, distance teaching method that’s already proving to be of tremendous benefit to a growing community of Alexander teachers hailing from a wide variety of training backgrounds.
“How To Really Teach A.T. Online” is my 10 week entry level training for Alexander teachers serious about learning an authentic, non-compromising comprehensive way to teach the Alexander Technique, online or in person, without any hands-on guidance
This course is Level 1 of TheCoachingClub™, my post-graduate training program for Alexander teachers looking to reach, teach and keep more new students using the internet both as a teaching and marketing medium.
This course will erase any doubts you may have about the effectiveness of online teaching because you will be able to see for yourself the effect it has upon you and your students.
“How To Really Teach A.T. Online” will build your confidence in the power of online teaching and will provide you with the skills & strategies needed to teach powerful Alexander lessons without having to use your hands.
The Q&A
Where Course Alumni Share Their Experiences
The Curriculum
Primal Alexander
Primal Alexander™is a step by step teaching/learning approach designed to improve your Use by teaching you how to experiment with movement in a way that lessens habitual excess tension.
By applying a different kind of directing and a graduated series of self-study “études”, Primal Alexander™ provides students and teachers with a straight forward, easy to follow blueprint for improvement and empowerment.
P.A. is a self-healing process that uses Inhibition & self-observation to create a gap between stimulus and response.
In that gap, our constructive allows our native movement intelligence to preempt our habitual way of moving while it reinforces the neural pathways that lead to better Use now and in the future.
The three assets within Primal Alexander™ that any Alexander teacher can immediately take advantage of are:
- An awareness process called 3EasyQuestions™,
- A collection of home-study activities called TheÉtudes™ &
- A mindset called ThePrimaryConcern™
3EasyQuestions
3EasyQuestions™ is my approach to teaching constructive conscious control. It’s based on the fact that when a person directs their attention to places of relative ease in their body, the head/neck reflex is gently facilitated.
When exploring the possibility of easier movement, after inhibiting, in the gap between stimulus and response, instead of traditional orders or directing, you quickly assess these three things about yourself in sequence:
- Where you’re currently noticing places of relative ease,
- What effect noticing that ease is having on your general Use and finally…
- How that general effect is changing as you begin to move.
This gentle, but focused curiosity about the ease you’re currently experiencing shifts your attention in a way that circumvents your usual habit patterns. It facilitates the Primary Control which reorganizes your movement on the fly, allowing you to move outside of your habit with increased ease.
As a form of Constructive Thinking, 3EasyQuestions™ allows the actual direction to come from the natural adaptive response of your nervous system.
You make a conscious choice to direct your attention to ease and then stand back and notice what happens. This prevents you from imposing a habitual, feeling based concept of forward, up, head, neck or body upon the process.
3EasyQuestions™ is a new take on constructive conscious control that is so easy to implement it can be taught to a brand new student in a first lesson.
However, in the hands of a teacher, it also becomes a potent self-healing tool that reveals and erodes deep habitual patterns that tend to be imperceptible & impenetrable.
TheEtudes
TheÉtudes™ are the “lightweight” home study activities that students do for a few minutes every day. They form the practice material they use to actualize what they are learning in the group class
Like the Études in classical music pedagogy, these are studies; opportunities for students to learn specific skills in a simplified, focused setting. When done regularly the Études…
- Give students a simple way to practice directing
- Keep them engaged with their studies between lessons.
- Empower them in their own learning
- Provide a way of facilitating the Primary Control on their own.
- Give them a way to improve their Use whenever they want.
- Teach Inhibition, Non-doing and Directing quickly.
- Improve their sensory appreciation.
- Develop the awareness they’ll need to apply the Technique in any activity.
ThePrimaryConcern
The foundational concept that underlies all of PrimalAlexander I call “The Primary Concern”. It is the root formulation of the self-experimental process that Alexander pioneered. The Primary Concern takes the form of the question:
What’s happening to my Use as I _____?
(any activity can be put in that blank)
When you can ask and answer that question a few times during an activity, you’ve begun to “think in activity”. It’s the key to understanding how the “end” you’re trying to gain is affecting the way you’re using yourself. Namely, how the manner in which you are doing things NOW is affecting your present and future ability to function efficiently (the “means whereby”).
Asking that question brings the “end” and the “means whereby” into the same frame so that you’re able view the changes in each simultaneously.
That way, when the way you’re doing something begins to interfere with your coordination, you become aware of it and have a chance to make a change.
That’s the bigger picture of how the Études function in Primal Alexander. Through consistent daily practice, they quickly teach a student the value of “thinking in activity” and a simple way to do it.
“A new field of practical
experimentation upon
the living human being”
F.M. Alexander
For me, the key to getting the most out of Alexander’s discoveries is to follow him down the road of self-experimentation.
We have a huge advantage over Alexander. Because as a result of his efforts, we know that if we can “Stick to Principle” long enough there truly is gold at the end of that rainbow.
Primal Alexander™is a step by step approach designed to improve your Use by teaching you how to experiment with movement in a way that lessens habitual excess tension.
By applying a different kind of directing and a graduated series of self-study “études”, Primal Alexander™ provides students and teachers with a straight forward, easy to follow blueprint for improvement.
It’s a self-healing process that uses Inhibition & self-observation to create a gap between stimulus and response.
In that gap, our native movement intelligence preempts our habitual way of moving while it reinforces the neural pathways that lead to better Use now and in the future.
Finally…,
In TheCoachingClub, with the help of 3EasyQuestions™ and TheÉtudes™ you will learn how to identify and then untie the psycho-physical knots that limit your effectiveness as practitioner and as a teacher of the Alexander Technique.
With those two tools and objective feedback from me and the other members, you’ll be able to enhance and refine your teaching much more quickly and easily than you could on your own.
If you’re interested, you could also acquire HandsFree Teaching skills that will enable you to teach authentic Alexander Technique in situations where hands-on guidance is not optimal or perhaps not even possible.
But, the bottom line is that you’ll discover a simpler way to “stick to principle” more fully and more often while teaching and in your daily life, so that you can more deeply enjoy and share this wonderful work with the world.
“How To Really Teach A.T. Online”
Level 1
Course Delivery
How To Really Teach A.T. Online meets Tuesdays from 12-2PM and Saturdays from 3-5PM New York time. From August 15 – October 17
Classes are taught on Zoom extensive use of breakout rooms
Members only Facebook group
Every class recorded.
Training partners
Access to the PrimalAlexander video library
The Q&A
Hey….
A little more than a month ago we wrapped up the maiden voyage of this course. It was a huge success but I knew that feedback from attendees would make it even better.
Below you will find some of the questions I asked and the answers they gave. I hope it help you get a better sense of what the course has to offer.
Cheers,
Mio
Additional Assets
Community
IT TAKES A VILLAGE
I think it does “take a village” to best teach this stuff. The synergy that happens when the learning is communal is magical and this certainly holds
true when it comes to the development
of teaching skills as well.
What has amazed me is that the quality of the peer-to peer learning is almost as high when people are not in the same physical space. We can benefit so much from each other even via video.
The regular opportunity to come together & work
with like-minded colleagues sharing the
challenges and the victories of this work is
a truly precious commodity.
Alexander teacher training has been done in a group setting from its inception. It’s how we all learned how to teach! And to be able to do it in a way that is so time & cost efficient and so effective as well is a gift.
Proactive Self-Care
MAGNANIMOUS SELFISHNESS
One of the most important lessons I’ve learned as a teacher began the very first time I ever attempted teaching. It was the final day of my 1st Summer workshop in Nebraska with Marjorie Barstow.
After watching me fumble around for 10 seconds or so, Marj gently took my hands down off the person I was working on and said: “Mio, you are the most important person in any lesson. If you can’t take care of yourself, how can you hope to help them?”
It took me many years before I really understood the depth of the wisdom in those words. Our power as teachers comes from our ability to enter positive learning states & then help our
students do the same.
I like to think of it as “magnanimous selfishness”. By being proactive in our own self-care we automatically share the regenerative wisdom
of our psycho-physical selves with others.
Home Improvement
THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME
As nice as it can be to travel to a residential workshop in a pleasant place, you can’t beat the convenience of being in a learning community
that meets weekly in your living room!
Not to mention the time and money you’ll save not having to travel, pay for a room & pay for food.
You won’t have to disrupt your
daily routine, sleep in a strange bed and ultimately
spend much less time learning life-altering
lessons with like-minded colleagues.
The immense value of having easy and regular
access to a quality A.T. mastermind led
by an innovative teacher with almost 50 years
of experience cannot be overstated.
We are all working hard to continue to develop our
work on ourselves and our teaching. Having an
easily accessible community for support and
“course correction” is a wonderful benefit.
We have FUN!
SERIOUS FUN!
Meeting Dr. Frank Pierce Jones in 1972 and coming into contact with Alexander’s teachings quite literally
saved my life. I was a young musician flirting with
disaster. Dangerously close to going off the deep end.
Frank epitomized what it means to be “a gentleman and a scholar”. Marjorie Barstow was the quintessence of straightforward, clear-eyed
personal experimentation. They both created intensely positive learning environments
that still inform my efforts.
Alexander work can at times be gut-wrenchingly personal and deeply confronting. We can really get down to the DNA of who we are, who we think
we are and who in the future we could become.
We have a ton of fun in our classes. It’s essential. Being able to share a self-deprecating chuckle at our silly selves is the healthy leavening that takes the edge off the seismic transformations that are part and parcel of applying Alexander’s discoveries in public.